Four postcard artists talk about their love for creative communication

May 17, 2018, 07:37 IST | Suman Mahfuz Quazi

Four of India's best postcard artists talk about their love for creative communication and how social media is helping the revival

Mumbai Local for Post

We live in a world where love, at first sight, has metamorphosed into a right swipe and hellos are conveyed via a digital palm emoji. In John Mayer’s new single, he sings in his dreamy voice, “I’m the boy in your other phone/ Lighting up inside your drawer at home all alone,” and maybe that’s all we are now — a contact on someone’s phone.

As people, however, we are creatures of habit, almost always finding it hard to let go. That might be why postcards are coming back in a big and beautiful way. Meet four young artists who discuss their tryst with postcards and how their social media handles have helped them popularise the medium and their art, to help with a revival.

Mumbai on a postcardTanishka D’lymaThe Mumbai-based 23-year-old art and copywriter believes postcards never fell off the radar. D’lyma’s work is heavily inspired by everyday Mumbai. “I don’t have to search to encounter the city; it is all around me. Every moment is an interaction with its elements. I found nuances that made themselves aware to me in the slightest ways, like everyone’s love for missal at my workplace or the conversations I overhear when I'm passing by someone on the street and reiterated it in my work. I called the series of postcards based on those experiences, Local,” she elaborates. “I sold out in the span of a day! I think Instagram stories are the best because communication is quick, easy and catches everyone’s attention,” she adds, explaining the response to her work and how social media has helped her garner an audience.

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Radio start to artNeethiFor the 27-year-old Bengaluru-based illustrator — whose dreamy work is inspired by nature and life — her love for letters and postcards can be traced back to a time when most of us still listened to the radio. “I used to add a small drawing to all my letters, and eventually started sending postcards, with a sketch, poem and a song request, as a bonus to the RJ. It was really sweet! Then pager messages and emails replaced it when everything went digital and I felt like we had lost a culture. When I started painting/drawing professionally, ironically, most of it was for the web. I had to take a step back to return to the physical medium. Which is why I love postcards,” she shares. “Every successful project I have completed as an independent artist has been through social media. It has been a large part of my discovery. Postcards have been a great way to reach out to my small audience and help us connect with each other,” she adds.

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Botanist bayAlisha Dutt IslamKolkata-based Islam, 24, started out with doodling as a lost teenager and gradually blossomed into an artist with an affinity towards botany. At a young age, Islam has already managed to woo her audience with her illustrations that are characterised by a special attention to detail. She tells us, “I draw inspiration from natural surroundings. For my personal projects, I have been painting tree species that are found in cities. The Bengal Series included hibiscus, marigold, red silk cotton and the night-flowering jasmine [shiuli]. I also had an exhibition themed around trees found in Bengaluru.” She continues, “In this digital world, which is ironically where you can access my work, postcards have a more human touch to them and that resonates with people. They work well as souvenirs and prints because they are small, affordable and easy to carry.”

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Wild and freeSudeepti TuckerThe 25-year-old Delhi-based illustrator has been working on women-centric themes. Her recent series titled PROWL “addresses strength not in a loud or abrasive manner but through quiet confidence”. Speaking of postcards, she says, “I like the idea of my art having a function. A postcard can become more than itself and impart emotive value to the sender and receiver.” She adds, “Social media has made it much easier to find or even create a niche audience for independent artists by increasing our discoverability. It enabled me to make my work available without a complex commercial set-up and introduced me to other artists as well.”